


Care of the Devil

by Anthropos_Metron



Category: Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Because even tyranical demon-monarchs deserve love, Bonding over a shared love of death-dealing war machines, But love makes him do funny things, Did I accidentally write a rom-com, Enemies to Lovers, I just love an original pairing, I wrote this with Mateus' 'violet robe' design in mind, M/M, Mateus is straight-up no bull 8-bit evil, Mateus loves a man in black armour, Mateus/Loqi romance, Particularly one nobody is asking for, Pre-start of both games, Slow-ish burn, Two-way Crossover, Will add tags as and when, Will eventually feature most of the FFXV cast, a little smutty but it's mostly incidental to the story, culture clash, gentle undercurrent of humour, when the cocky jock meets the clever nerd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21573199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthropos_Metron/pseuds/Anthropos_Metron
Summary: What happens when an 8-bit villain accidentally meets their future boyfriend by trying to summon demons from the abyssal realms, and discovers the ability to jump between dimensions.There’s no way this could end badly. Absolutely none.Hell’s inferno’s gonna be burning a lot hotter…A lot of the FFXV cast will eventually feature, but things are stuck in Palamecia for the first few chapters.
Relationships: Emperor Mateus/Loqi Tummelt
Comments: 12
Kudos: 11





	1. I Met My Future Boyfriend By Accident While Attempting to Summon Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI here - I wrote this whole thing in my mind with Mateus in his ‘alternate’ style which the FMV for FF Origins gave him, and which he later had as one of his alternate outfits in Dissidia. If you don't know what that looks like, then it would be worth searching for it. Essentially, he looks much more stereotypically JRPG'd than his original design. Something about it just spoke to me more in writing this story. It’s a lot hornier than his original design, certainly…
> 
> Standard disclaimers apply, these aren't my characters, I'm not making an IP claim, and this isn't being done for commercial purposes. I'm just playing around with the characters because I love the FF games and writing.

Demon-summoning was certainly not a group activity, but as he was not remotely a gregarious man, he possessed a fairly good claim to be well-suited to it.

His ancestors had certainly known it was not suitable for an audience; hence the rather large underground vault he was now striding into, deep in the underbelly of Castle Palamecia. He raised his arm, commanding the small orb he was using for illumination to sit high in the middle of the room, and increase its luminescence.

He was, as was his custom on these occasions, wearing a simple robe. It was best to have no distractions, either physical or mental. Magic of this degree was a ticklish thing. An involuntary flex or spasm in the mind, and things could be thrown completely out of joint.

He’d spent a lot of his life learning self-discipline and restraint - first in response to his disgust at his father, a drunken sot who had besmirched the throne of Palamecia. His entire life had been wine, women and song, and he’d been not shy in delivering many a coarse jibe at young Mateus’ total disinterest in the second and third. The laughs from his father’s coterie still echoed through his mind.

And then he’d been sent to Mysidia, far away from Palamecia, to lose himself in the one thing he really enjoyed, tomes and books – and their associated magic. But there was never any expectation of his ascending the throne. His brother was the heir, and he was the spare. Those were good years. Tomes, endless tomes, and only as much company and demands on his time as he wished, which was to say, not much. He would have been quite happy if it had stretched on forever.

You didn’t become good at magic without self-discipline. And he’d become very good at both, very good indeed.

But then his brother had died in a riding accident. And then his father had died, and suddenly a lot of people were laughing on the other side of their faces.

He’d already dabbled in ‘dark’ magic in Mysidia. Why not; power was power, ultimately, provided you could control it. But once he became Emperor it was practically a necessity to keep Palamecia afloat. And after a time, it didn’t seem all that strange to bring other-worldly forces into the world to bolster the empire’s armies, and solve its manpower problems. Still potentially dangerous, but not so strange. Perhaps once the dreadnought was built, the need would ease.

It was time for another summoning. He drew up his sceptre, pointed its head forward, and closed his eyes.

It had been a trying day, though, with him and his council dealing with a multitude of administrative issues, and reports from Salamand and the east. Did the capital _need_ to give the idiots out there instruction on how to work the slaves in the mythril mines, and suchlike? It really wasn’t so hard.

No, he was too tired for this. He felt the summon faltering, and then failing completely. Irksome indeed, but he kept his composure easily enough; it wasn’t like the failure of others, there was never any profit in punishing yourself. Simply an unfortunate lapse. He could try again tomorrow.

Perhaps he needed to clear his schedule, and indulge some kind of distraction. It had been a long time since he’d been to the coliseum, and the crowds did love to see the Emperor. He’d never cared for hunting remotely, but he genuinely loved the arena. Last time he’d been there had been months ago; he’d seen a marvellous battle between a fighter and a sand worm. The sand worm had eventually devoured the fighter in one big, forceful lunge. That had been a very interesting show.

Yes, that’s what he’d do. Have an early night, and then go to the coliseum tomorrow.

He made to leave the chamber, but just as he was about to complete his turn, he heard a tell-tale gurgle from behind him.

He immediately turned back to face it, brandishing his sceptre in front of himself. The thick, circular purple swirl of a portal was already coagulating in front of him, about ten paces away. He retreated a little in an elegant backstep, and braced himself.

How and why the portal was active, he couldn’t quite imagine, but this wasn’t the time for such pondering. It was beginning to pulsate. Something was coming through.

Even prepared, the flash as something metallic-looking tumbled out of it caught him off guard. He was a fraction away from unleashing an onslaught of magic against it, until he noticed a flick of hair.

Yes, it was a man alright. He appeared to be clad in black armour which was ostensibly very similar to that of his own elite knights, but which had subtle differences in the trim, and some kind of sash falling over the shoulder.

The man lifted his head, and their eyes met. If the man was distressed by being brought though an interdimensional portal and being confronted in a darkened, cavernous space by a man with two foot-long horns extending from his head, he didn’t remotely demonstrate it. He gave a cry, pushing himself off his feet, running towards Mateus.

“ _No_ ,” Mateus said firmly, as if correcting a child, and, channelling magic through his sceptre, brought the man back down to his knees with a growl of defiance.

The growl formed itself into a shout of some unintelligible language; the man was angry, and not intimidated remotely.

Mateus blinked. Though he couldn’t understand a word of the speech, it had been years since anyone had dared speak to him in such a tone. It threw him thoroughly on edge.

The issue of language was easy enough to resolve. He drew up his hand, and he felt an invisible pulse connect him with the man; relatively simple magic. Folk magic, really.

“-and _why_ have I been brought here?” the man cut in, now intelligible. He was still raging, his features lost to his temper.

Mateus took stock of the man. He was fair indeed in his countenance, he had to admit. Perhaps the same age as himself, or a few years younger. His sandy-blonde hair fell down his face, curving above his eye, a decidedly short length by Mateus’ own standards, but which some might have thought long; it had a charming, fractional curl at the ends. He couldn’t gain any accurate impression of body shape under the armour, but he guessed there was a degree of muscle, if the man was indeed a fighter.

“Why indeed,” Mateus asked. “Why indeed.”

Mateus quickly thrust his sceptre forward, but the man simply drew his head back a little, and there was no flinch in his features.

How absolute his confidence was. If he had been a spy or an assassin, perhaps somehow sent by Fynn - which was a theory he was chasing around in his mind - he would have known full well what awaited him at the hands of the Emperor. Yet he seemed to regard this situation as more of an inconvenience.

“Sent by Fynn, were you? Or Kas’ion, perhaps?”

“I’ve never heard of anyone called Kas’ion, or Fynn. I'm a proud officer of the Niflheim Empire! Other than that – you won’t get a _word_ out of me.”

Mateus’ eyes narrowed. “You’re rather assured, for a captive, aren’t you?”

The man sniffed. “Torture won’t work on me.”

“Perhaps, perhaps…”

If there was fear in the man, it existed only in the tiniest portion in his dark eyes.

“Proud officer of the Niflheim Empire, I have to confess – I did not bring you here.”

The man made a scornful noise in his throat.

“Do you have any notion of where you are? Nowhere close to your Niflheim, I can assure you of that.”

“I expect this is some convoluted Lucian scheme.”

“Do I look Lucian?”

The man said nothing.

“I am a mage of sorts. I summon objects – objects through portals such as you fell through. You’re not in the Niflheim Empire anymore – in fact I am willing to wager you are not in the same dimension anymore.”

The man simply stared at him.

Mateus slowly advanced on the man, stopping so his waist was level with the man’s head. He reached out, and delicately stroked the man’s hair with his long, patterned fingernails. “I had a fancy to kill you as a spy - just on the off-chance - but I’ve changed my mind,” he announced, conversationally. He enjoyed the spectacle of righteous punishment, to be sure, but in this case, it would be misplaced. The man was just a loyal stooge of his other-worldly empire, that was obvious enough.

“You’re rather pretty, aren’t you,” Mateus ventured, as if that was the determining factor in operation here.

The man’s eyes flared a little, and his expression softened by a fraction.

“Now, I am going to release your restraints. I do so hope you’ll behave sensibly. I am _entirely_ capable of defending myself, if not.”

Mateus stepped back, and then lifted the magical hold on the man’s body. The man fell forward a little, but caught himself, and slowly raised himself up to this full height. As he fidgeted with his armour in an effort to regain his composure, his expression fell somewhere in the midst of a begrudging kind of respect, and a still-simmering defiance.

“Good,” Mateus observed, flatly. “Now, shall we begin again?”

The man’s head twitched from side-to-side with unloosed tension, like an unbroken horse. Eventually, though, he offered a hand. “Loqi. Loqi Tummelt,” he said, softly.

Mateus stepped forward, and received the proffered hand with his own. “Mateus, of Palamecia. Well met, Loqi Tummelt.” His assumptions about the body under this Loqi’s armour had been right it seemed – his hand was firm and muscular.

Loqi stared directly and intensely into Mateus’ eyes as their hands retracted. “So. You say you had nothing to do with this?”

“Indeed I did not. I am still rather puzzled as to how it happened, and you emerged. Nothing of this variety has happened before.”

There was a silence for a time, as Loqi drank it all in. “Your horns,” he finally said, gesturing to them.

“Ah. Simply a styling of the hair which is a quirk of my family. I am sure they must seem strange to an off-worlder.”

Well, that wasn’t untrue as such, but there _was_ an omission in it. Horns _were_ associated with the Palamecian dynasty, but that was due to the activities of some of his predecessors. Summoning from the beyond and using your body as a conduit produced certain... physical manifestations over time. But the world at large thought of them as an affectation of power, an extreme styling of the hair of Palamecian royals through the ages, a sign of strength and status. Mateus was one of several of his line, men and women, who had found it necessary to grow hair down to the knees, and magically bind the hair to the horn-growth at the sides.

“And where are we, if I may ask?”

“You may ask. We are in a vault underneath Castle Palamecia.”

Loqi began to wander a little, inspecting the gloom. “Interesting.”

“I assume magical power exists in some form on your world?”

“To an extent. Though I’ve always much preferred machines and technology.”

“Now that is interesting. I have something of an interest in machines of war myself.”

“Really? A mage and an engineer? A man of many talents, it seems.”

Mateus certainly wasn’t going to deny that. “Do not doubt it. You realise, of course, that I could keep you here, to assist me. I am sure your knowledge would be invaluable.”

Loqi locked his eyes with Mateus’ again, a subtle undertone of threat in them. “And will you?”

“I should, of course. Yet that would be a trifle dishonourable when set against your own conduct. You didn’t plead for your life like a dog earlier. You did not betray your country. All this, you could have done. Your behaviour was admirable – you would have died to protect your integrity. This I can admire, even in a foreigner.”

“Thank you,” Loqi said, softly. His lips curled at the corners as a thought distilled in his mind. “My behaviour didn’t seem like the only thing you were taken with earlier.”

Mateus wasn’t a man to smile often, but his mouth partly matched Loqi’s. “Indeed not. You are a comely lad.”

Loqi sniffed back a laugh. “I don’t think anyone’s called me a ‘lad’ before.”

“Yet you do not deny men have found you desirable.”

Loqi’s expression became a leer. “I imagine many have.”

“Is the notion of men lying with other men unthinkable on your world?”

“Not unthinkable, but hardly encouraged.”

“A good thing you are not on your world, then.”

“I doubt yours is any better.”

“I doubt it is as well. Yet as there are only we two here, who cares for the swinish multitude.”

Loqi simply paced slowly around the chamber, his face sometimes looking behind him to flash that same expression of unplacable intensity.

“For all your conceit, Loqi, you are more than a touch evasive. How disappointing.”

“Ha. I’m not going to whore myself to you.”

“Who spoke of whoring? You are the first to raise that possibility. Is the wish the father to the thought?”

Loqi chuckled. “Oh, you can’t _imagine_ how you’re flattering yourself!”

“My words please you. Why deny it?” Mateus drawled.

“If you wish to please me, then send me back,” Loqi said, but his eyes showed a coquettishness.

“Only once you follow your inclination and kiss me. Your reticence and dallying sits poorly with how I first perceived you.”

“You’re so _full_ of yourself.”

“Then we’re well-matched.”

Loqi made a dismissive noise, but his broadening smile betrayed something.

“I think you rather like the pursuit, and seeing me dangle on your strings. So it seems that I shall have to take the initiative.”

Loqi’s expression retained its defiant intensity as Mateus advanced, but when they were within a pace of each other, it slid off, melted, and he suddenly looked awfully inviting, softer, and submissive. Mateus needed no more encouragement, and drew his arm round the waist of the armour, and pulled Loqi in for a kiss.

Their verbal back-and-forth had piqued Mateus. Yet he still savoured the initial, slow kiss, the gap and the tension between them collapsing so sublimely. He delicately savoured Loqi’s taste, and the softness of his thin lips. Loqi certainly seemed worthy of that.

After the initial tenderness, though, he dived in, roughly and passionately, their tongues meeting, until Mateus broke off. Pulling his head forward, he kissed down the side of Loqi’s neck, as the other man moaned and hissed his approval. Arriving at the base, Mateus planted one last kiss, before slowly pulling back. He noticed Loqi had a delightful scent about him, something like jasmine.

Loqi seemed in little mood to stop, however, and grasped the back of Mateus’ neck, trying to pull his head back in.

“This really is not the place,” Mateus murmured. “And I tire.” Though the words made sense - after the day he'd had, and the summoning, he was exhausted - he felt a simultaneous lightness and heaviness in his chest, an odd feeling.

“I somehow doubt we’ll have another opportunity, after you send me back,” Loqi noted, gently stroking the back of Mateus’ neck.

“I did not _say_ I would send you back. However, I doubt you would appreciate me stranding you here, not one bit. And I rather like you too much how you are. Is that mere sentiment?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Loqi conceded, before sighing.

“We may see each other again, though I cannot be certain. The portal you came through may not be easily replicated. Indeed, you may not even return to where you came through. You are aware there is a risk in me sending you back?”

“There’s always a risk. But I have to go back. I can’t leave my life. I can’t desert.”

“Ah. A slave to duty. How noble. Well, let us hope I can return you to your Nibelheim.”

“ _Niflheim_.”

“I stand corrected. Come, then.”

Mateus waved the other man to stand back. The feel of magic recently used was familiar, like an old coat, and easy to grasp, even with an accidental effect such as in this instance. But this was still going to be tricky. He focused, and eventually felt a sensation like cool air being blown over his hand, but underneath the skin. A portal soon manifested.

“It feels right, intuitively. I can put it in no other terms,” he noted to Loqi. “You should go.”

Loqi noded. “Perhaps I might find myself here again, sometime.”

“I would rather hope so, even as I doubt.”

“Me too. Goodbye,” Loqi said, with a furtive smile, before kissing Mateus on the cheek. He then strode forward, until his form flared, and then dissipated into the portal.

And then he was gone.


	2. Are You Not Entertained

As an Emperor, duty was paramount.

As a misanthrope, though, there were frequently days where there was a serious mismatch between the level of public exposure demanded of Mateus, and the level of interest he had in engaging with the public. Or anyone, for that matter. The worst of it was that today it was entirely self-inflicted.

After the encounter with Loqi, and on the back of a surge of emotions, it had seemed an excellent notion to declare that he wanted his itinerary cleared for tomorrow, as he was off to the coliseum.

But even then, the moodslide was already incipient, rumbling. It had taken him perhaps eight seconds after his disappearance before he began considering precisely what mind-wasting affliction had made him let Loqi depart. This was a complaint directed at himself, by himself, which had only grown, until now, when it had become a cacophony of noise attempting to beat him down. It was alien to him.

He had come to realise that the very uniqueness of the encounter had meant he had afforded Loqi an almost equal footing with himself. In the real world, where all was familiar, where a person’s standing was circumscribed by their social status, nobody would ever have raged against him, as simply another person, as Loqi had. Loqi hadn’t known he was a monarch, but if he had, would he have been any more cowed? Given what he had seen of his character, he was doubtful.

Lots of people hated him for what he represented, for simply being an Emperor but, Loqi, immediately after he had come through the portal, had hated him as an individual.

Mateus firmly knew the difference between right and wrong, which was to say, ‘right’ was almost invariably ‘things that I do', while 'wrong' was ‘things that people who irritate me do’. It was not easy to re-adjust this firm personal morality to square the argument for his own culpability which his internal voice insisted upon, so he was now trying to persuade himself that letting Loqi go was Loqi’s fault. He had been subtle, in laying down unspoken assumptions of mutual respect which he had conned Mateus into accepting. Yes, that was surely it.

It had always been a fault of his to be too kind to people.

He was jerked back into the reality of the arena by a great uproar from the crowd. He peered down to see what the cause of it was. It seemed that the combat between the ogre and the fighter had been resolved in the ogre’s favour. Or at least, that was what he assumed had happened from what remained of the encounter, which was an ogre, a lot of red, and a pair of boots.

He gave some perfunctory applause. It had really been a splendid day at the arena, which had accentuated his low mood. As had the behaviour of the crowd, who were loving every minute of it – the bastards.

He perched the side of his face on his fist, his arm resting on the arm of his seat. He sighed the sort of self-pitying sigh which takes whole seconds to emit.

"Are you, uh, quite alright, Your Imperial Majesty?"

He shifted his head to face the voice from behind him. It came from one of his ministers, a fussy little man called Martim who was obsequious even by higher court standards.

He didn’t much like his mood being low, but he disliked other people thinking they had a right to cheer him up much, much more. Mateus gently bobbed his head from side-to-side, while looking glum, the universally-recognised sign for ‘I’m pretty miserable, but I really don’t want to discuss it.’

Martim persisted, though, making a sympathetic cooing noise. "Oh, surely it’s not so bad, Majesty?"

Mateus opened his mouth, but the growl of _It wasn’t until you began talking_ didn’t emerge. Instead he paused for a moment, and beckoned the man closer, before his mouth opened again. "I have a problem," he whispered.

"Can I assist?" the man immediately asked, a perky expression on his face. Mateus thought this was a touch odious even by court standards.

"Unlikely. It’s.. a personal problem."

"Ah. Well, there are herbs, unguents, and suchlike -"

"No, no. Not that. I mean – I mean-"

"A lady, Majesty?"

It had become an unspoken convention between him and the court that he, somehow, had a minimal interest in women. It was just easier that way.

"Ah, yes. A lady." Mateus sighed, and composed his thoughts, before continuing. "When you’re prepared to make bad decisions, stupid decisions, decisions which benefit someone else, but might work against you, when you put someone else’s interests first over your own – that’s.. that’s _wrong_ , isn’t it?"

The man made an expression which suggested he was giving this serious consideration, as if pondering an abstruse piece of metaphysical philosophy. "Sounds rather like love to me, Majesty," he eventually suggested.

Mateus considered this, and shuddered. "Love?"

"Yes, Majesty."

"Are you saying I am in love?" Mateus asked, as if the man was challenging his dress sense.

"It’s… not really something anyone can determine on your behalf, Majesty."

"No, no. I suppose not."

Mateus turned back to face the arena, and blinked. This was horrible. He had been presented with the opportunity of keeping Loqi here, of him sharing all his knowledge on machines, and possibly giving Palamecia a devastating advantage over Fynn and Kas’ion, and he had let it slip through his fingers, because of some… suspected emotional whimsy.

There was only one way of dealing with this humiliation. Of putting it totally, utterly, and completely out of his mind. Of salting the fields from which the memory drew its food, of starving it out, of declaring war on an episode so abject.

That was how it would be dealt with, and dealt with firmly.

Four hours later, Mateus was back in the vault underneath Castle Palamecia.


	3. Strong and Stable

He was finally set on his course.

The right one. The one he should have taken from the very start.

Once he’d returned from the coliseum, he’d deliberated for hours, but he’d finally caved, and accepted that there was no escape from his mistake with Loqi. His internal voice just kept beating, hammering, pounding away. _Feeble-minded, weak fool_ …

He’d come to an epiphany that the only way to overcome a mistake was not to let it fester while battling it in vain, but to correct it. So he was back, in the darkened vault, underneath Castle Palamecia, for the second night in a row. Ready to summon, once again.

To bring Loqi back to him.

He’d rehearsed what he was going to say to Loqi for hours. It was important to get things just so; to set exactly the right tone.

_I have decided, Loqi, that your knowledge is too consequential. You will stay here with me until you have furnished us with all that you know about the technology of your world. So it shall be, by my decree, whether you like it or no._

Generous, concise, reasonable, and, most importantly, absolutely, completely, correct. The absolutely _right_ thing to do.

That voice inside him which had chided him for hours would burn in the hell-fires that would engulf Fynn when Loqi’s knowledge was put to good use.

He was dressed appropriately, this time, in his full attire which he had not changed from the coliseum; his black justacorps with the delicate grey prints – his favourite – and his cape, kept in place by his purple mantle, rising high at his shoulders. His diadem, too, covering his forehead.

No, he wasn’t going to make the mistake this time he’d made before, of thinking that it was a dialogue between equals. This time, he would be Emperor, and Loqi would be the captive.

He drew his sceptre, and paused for a moment, inhaling the damp air in the gloom of the vault. At the final moment, what he was about to do seemed to inspire a strange sort of feeling in him. A sort of churn in his stomach, an anticipation, but also a concern that he would not be able to replicate the portal, and that some other than Loqi might come through.

All rather odd.

He set aside such thoughts. There was only one way to resolve everything, and that was by action, not idle musing.

He drew his sceptre forward, concentrating, but also distracting himself, trying to shunt his mind into the same sort of mood of lassitude that he’d been in the night before. After a small time which seemed to replicate that of last night’s, he disengaged his summoning attempt, and hoped. Four or five seconds of nothing stretched on into what seemed hours.

Yet, finally the portal manifested, swirling and deepening. He said a silent entreaty to the gods.

The portal pulsed, and flexed, and a form emerged, once more.

He could discern it was Loqi from the hair, but all else seemed different; no armour at all this time, just what seemed like a strange sort of tunic, set against rather simple, loose-fitting black hose. It was almost a servile attire, yet he noted, as Loqi raised himself up, that the effect was not displeasing. Some simple chamber-garb, perhaps. A pity about the black armour, though. He had so liked that on Loqi.

As Loqi steadied himself after his emergence, much more easily this time, their eyes fixed once again. Loqi’s expression seemed in a battle between pique and amusement. But all the conceit Mateus had seen yesternight was still there, fully manifest.

"Loqi, I -" he began, but his rehearsed speech dissipated, like milk tossed into the wind, in the sheer reality of seeing that expression once more. The cockiness, the hubris…

The beauty –

" _Yes_?" Loqi coaxed, his face rising into the happiness that comes from some sort of confirmation.

"I -" Mateus gritted his teeth, as he battled against himself to force the words into being.

That smirk, that sneer…

"I -" He made a noise, deep in his throat, as he tried to physically force his body into uttering his prepared statement. It was half-growl, half-groan. Still, the traitorous words did not come.

That beauty.

The battle was being lost. He could feel his intentions turning, not just fleeing the field but also transforming, transmogrifying into something horrible, awful -

" I… was…" He’d never, ever, been good at expressing emotion, and he was extremely thankful for it. But the taste of this – this _madness_. He took a sudden intake of breath, in preparation for the words his rebel mind was casting into being – "I.. was… cognisant. Of. Your absence."

"You missed me, huh?" There was nothing less than triumph in that voice, and that face.

Mateus nodded, as if struck dumb. "Yes. I – I missed. You."

Loqi’s expression broke, and he gave a snort of supressed laughter. "Maybe – _maybe_ I missed you too."

Mateus considered how bizarre it was, that all preparations should melt in the face of this soft and pleasurable reality. Pondering on such things also meant he was relieved from the business of trying to think what to say next, which he had not a single thought on. "It – it is good to see you once again," he eventually offered.

Loqi flicked his hair from his face, his expression pensive. "I’d _probably_ have to say the same."

Mateus felt odd, somehow rather taken with this newly discovered mood of honesty, even as his mind cast back to himself of only a few minutes ago raging. "I – I suspect you are worried of my intentions."

"You did mention the possibility of keeping me here permanently."

"Indeed I did. And to be fully candid, such were my intentions in bringing you here a second time. Or so I thought – so - so I told myself."

Loqi’s eyes narrowed a touch, a sombre expression hanging on his face. "So – why am I here?"

"I - I won’t insist on you being so, if you do not wish it."

A tentative smile emerged on Loqi’s face. "No, I’m okay staying for a while."

Mateus found himself smiling in turn. "That would please me. But you must surely still doubt me?"

"You were pretty sure of yourself." Loqi laughed, almost, it seemed, in spite of himself, as he tried to brush away the laugh with his hand. "But I – I kind of liked that."

"I - I felt likewise, about you."

They both shared a moment, strange it seemed to Mateus, where they both shared laughter, a sort of confessional mood passing between them.

Loqi’s laugh died away, giving way to a sort of pride in his face. "It’s only been a week. I guess you couldn’t bear me being gone?"

Mateus frowned. "A week? Not for me. It has been but merely a day." Mateus realised the implicit admission in that fact only after speaking it.

"Really? I didn’t know I was that alluring."

"You are. As you know well – do not deny it. You cheapen yourself in being coy, and feigning modesty."

Loqi beamed a smile, prompting a deep sigh from Mateus.

"Shall we, ah, shall we leave this place?" Mateus asked. "I tire of all our interactions being in this curséd damp."

"Sure. I’d like to see what your world looks like."

"Or can you not spare a day or two, on your world? Such may be the fate of only a few hours, it seems."

Loqi folded his arms over his chest, and considered the issue. "I’m on leave at the moment. I probably won’t be missed for a day, or two."

"Leave?"

"From the military."

"Ah. Doubtless why your attire has changed, also. But let us be about our business. Come – we can talk as we stroll. There is much to discuss. "

Loqi ambled forward, casually. As he drew level with Mateus, he pointed a finger at the other man. "Don’t think I’m not going to keep an eye on you," he said, his tone mock-chastising. "You _better_ had treat me like a proper guest."

Mateus simply smiled in response to Loqi's hauteur, and considered how bizarre, how stupid it seemed, that in intending to capture Loqi, he seemed far the more captured.

And yet - how sweet a captivity it now felt.


End file.
